Striking school teachers may receive personal attention from local MPPs Friday

Guelph Mercury

GUELPH — It will be business and usual on Friday at the constituency offices of Guelph MPP Liz Sandals and Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott, even though striking elementary teachers intend to picket outside their offices.

Of course, provincial and federal politicians are often the target of pickets and public demonstrations, so this is not unusual. Neither office is taking any extra precautions.

“We’ll do what we usually do. We’ll carry on,” said Sandals’ office manager Jennifer Waterston.

Waterston said Sandals has appointments on Friday which she intends to keep, and therefore will be in and out of the office.

Sandals’ mother, Jean MacNaughton, died Dec. 6 and the funeral was Dec. 11 so she’s got some catching up to do.

Waterston said office staff has been told the teachers plan on picketing in two waves — the first from 9:30 a.m. to noon and the second from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Teachers will not be picketing outside schools or at the Upper Grand District School Board administrative office on Victoria Road.

“This is entirely the proper place for them to be picketing,” Waterston said. “Their complaint is with the province.”

Waterston said police are aware of the picket and will put up barricades to keep demonstrators on the sidewalk if necessary. She said it’s been much safer for demonstrators since there’s now a crossing signal on Woolwich Street instead of just a crosswalk.

“That’s the issue with demonstrations — to keep people safe and the traffic moving,” Waterston said.

Arnott also has appointments Friday morning, “and I will be keeping those appointments,” he said in a phone interview. But he will be in his Fergus office in the afternoon and will be pleased to speak with teachers then.

They likely won’t like what they hear, however.

“I don’t condone the strike,” Arnott said. “The government should be managing the situation and it’s not. We passed Bill 115 to prevent education strikes and to ensure no class time was lost due to strikes, but here we are anyway.”

Arnott said he invited Doug Cook, president of the Upper Grand unit of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, for a conversation but Cook did not accept.

Since being in a legal strike position, elementary teachers are stepping up job sanctions and are arranging one-day rolling strikes across the province.

All elementary schools in the Upper Grand board will be closed Friday and school buses cancelled. Secondary school teachers in the Upper Grand board have ratified a contract — the only board in the province to do so — so high schools will be open Friday and students are expected in class.